Shirley Bassey - Diamonds Are Forever - 1965 |
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Shirley Bassey singing "Gold Finger" for the film's opening and closing title sequences, as well as the soundtrack album release. In the early and mid 1960s, Bassey had numerous hits on the UK charts, and five albums in the top 15. Her 1960 recording of "As Long As He Needs Me" from Lionel Bart's Oliver! reached #2, and had a chart run of 30 weeks. In 1962, Bassey's collaboration with Nelson Riddle and his orchestra produced the album Let's Face the Music (#12) and the single "What Now My Love" (#5). Other top ten hits of the period included her second #1, the double A-side "Reach for the Stars"/"Climb Ev'ry Mountain" (1961), "I'll Get By" (also 1961), and a cover version of the Ben E. King hit "I (Who Have Nothing)" in 1963. During this period, John F. Kennedy invited Bassey to sing at his Inaugural Ball. In 1965, Bassey enjoyed her first U.S. Top 10 chart hit with the title song of the James Bond film, Goldfinger – from the #1 original soundtrack in the U.S. that same year. Owing to the success of Goldfinger, she appeared frequently on many American television talk shows such as those hosted by Johnny Carson and by Mike Douglas. Also in 1965, she sang the title track for the spoof James Bond film The Liquidator, and had a Top 20 live album recorded during a sell-out run at London's Pigalle. From 1964 onwards the "Goldfinger" single had a lasting impact on her career: writing for the sleeve notes of Bassey's 25th Anniversary Album, Clayton (1978) notes that: "Acceptance in America was considerably helped by the enormous popularity of (Goldfinger)...But she had actually established herself there as early as 1961, in cabaret in New York. She was also a success in Las Vegas...'I suppose I should feel hurt that I've never been really big in America on record since Goldfinger...But, concertwise, I always sell out.'..." This was reflected in the fact that Bassey had only one solo LP to reach the Top 20 in a US chart (R&B, Live at Carnegie Hall), and she was technically a "one-hit wonder," making only one appearance in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, "Goldfinger". But in the aftermath of "Goldfinger" her UK sales started to falter as well: only two of her singles would enter the top 40 until 1970. She had signed to United Artists, and her first album on that label, 1966's I've Got a Song for You, spent one week on the chart; from there until 1970, only two albums would enter the top 40, one of those a compilation. In 1967 came the release of one of her best-known singles "Big Spender", although it charted just outside the UK Top 20. Bassey started living as a tax exile in 1968, and was not permitted to work in Britain for almost two years. Also in 1968, at the Sanremo Festival in Italy, she performed "La vita", an Italian song by Bruno Canfora and Antonio Amurri, with some lyrics re-written in English by Norman Newell for her performance. Her version of the song with chorus sung in Italian became a Top 40 hit on the Italian chart, and Bassey recorded several songs in Italian, some appearing on a 1968 Italian album titled La vita. (Later, Newell would write English lyrics for the rest of "La vita", and the result was "This Is My Life".) But her UK sales continued to suffer. [1]
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Shirley Bassey - Diamonds Are Forever - 1965 Shirley Bassey - Goldfinger - 1965 Shirley Ellis - Nitty Gritty - 1964 Shirley Ellis - The Name Game - 1965 Shirley Temple - On The Good Ship Lollipop - 1933 |